Startup Turkey and the Future of Turkish B2B

This year is the first year Edefter.com attended Startup Turkey, which was held in Antalya from February 20-22. It was a packed event full of inspirational startups and insightful investors. We talked about the customer pain points we were solving, traded advise, and made connections. Many thanks to Burak Büyükdemir at Etohum for organizing such a wonderful event.

One of the topics on everyone's mind was innovation in the business-to-business (B2B) space. There has been a number of startups in Turkey focusing on business-to-consumer (B2C) innovation, ranging from ecommerce to social media to peer-to-peer platforms. Innovation in B2B, however, has been slow to get started. One reason could be that B2B innovation is less obvious and requires extensive industry knowledge. Another reason could be that B2B innovation requires more capital to finance than typical B2C startups due to more demanding customer requirements and longer sales cycles. A third reason could be that B2B innovation requires overall readiness from a large ecosystem, ranging from payment processors to 3rd-party developers to regulators. Whatever the reason, everyone agreed that B2B innovation in Turkey is the next big thing.

What will the future bring for B2B startups in Turkey? The attendees of Startup Turkey offered a glimpse. Companies such as Mastercard and PayPal talked about payment solutions that will enable B2B startups to experiment with new business models. Startups such as GaniPara,, SambaPOS,, and us have made the first foray into this market to demonstrate that big pains can be solved with new technologies and new perspectives. Venture capital firms, such as our investor Revo Capital,, are ready to back bold and enterprising B2B startups. Indeed, Fatih İşbecer's success with Pozitron already proves the potential of B2B in Turkey. B2B startups have an exciting journey ahead and it'll require collaboration from all of us to grow this market. Edefter.com looks forward to working with everyone to bring innovative solutions to the millions of businesses in Turkey and beyond.